


The Room of Memories

by dragonwings948



Series: TARDIS Fam [9]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Exploring the TARDIS, Feels, Friendship, Memories, Pictures, TARDIS Rooms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 21:20:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17988710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dragonwings948/pseuds/dragonwings948
Summary: As Yaz is exploring in the TARDIS, she comes across a room full of photos that feature the Doctor's past companions.





	The Room of Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This idea came from two things!
> 
> 1\. A brilliant headcanon my friend Cat has had for years, which is that there's a wall in the TARDIS plastered with photos of all the Doctor's friends over the years. 
> 
> 2\. The Series 11 novel, Molten Heart, which talks about Yaz frequently exploring the TARDIS. 
> 
> And thus, this fic was born. Enjoy!

            The rooms in the TARDIS seemed to change every day.

            Yaz tried to keep track of the places she had explored and the ones she had yet to discover, but she could swear that the doors swapped places every time she looked. She would go into the room she had discovered to be the swimming pool and would be greeted with a library instead. Down the corridor that contained the kitchen, more doors would suddenly appear, leading to new places. Other rooms would disappear entirely.

            Proof that the Doctor wasn’t just being overly sentimental when she claimed that her ship was alive.

            Today, Yaz decided to try and go further than she’d ever gone before. She turned down several hallways (committing the path to memory for the return journey) until she was sure she had never ventured to this part of the ship. Two doors stood on one side of the hall, a single door on the other side. Yaz mentally weighed her choices before heading toward the lone door on the left side of the corridor.

            It slid open easily and automatically, like every door on the TARDIS. She hadn’t found a single room that had been locked.

            Lights flicked on overhead as she stepped inside. The room itself was rather empty, except…

            Yaz walked over to the far wall and lifted her hand to touch the edge of a black and white photograph. A young girl smiled out from the picture, her expression bright.

            _Who is she?_

            Yaz pushed the question to the back of her mind as she followed the wall with her eyes. It extended at least a hundred feet or so, maybe more. The photo at her fingertips was only one of probably thousands that were mounted to the wall.

            She moved on. Though she scanned for any appearances of the Doctor, she couldn’t find any. Several men and women appeared in the photographs, all in different locations and with every variance in expression you could imagine. It was almost like an art gallery.

            _Who are these people? Does the Doctor know all of them? Why does she have all of these photographs?_

“I haven’t had the time to put up our photos yet.”

            Though trained to respond calmly to this sort of thing, the Doctor’s voice still made Yaz jump a little. She couldn’t shake the feeling of being like a child with her hand caught in the cookie jar. The door hadn’t been locked, and the Doctor hadn’t told her to stop exploring, but still… Yaz got the impression that the photo wall was personal.

            “Sorry,” Yaz said as she turned toward the voice. “I didn’t mean to pry. I was just exploring.”

            The Doctor, bereft of her coat, walked toward her with a smile. “Oh Yaz, of course you are. That’s all right. Exploring is good.” She faced the wall and stuffed her hands in her pockets, her smile growing fainter. “Lifetimes of memories,” she murmured.

            “Are all of these—yours?”

            The Doctor nodded. “Featuring me and all my friends.” Her eyes focused on a particular photo and she closed in on it, running her fingers over the edges. It displayed a woman barely clad in leather with long, brown hair and a confused expression next to a man with a broad smile, the biggest eyes she’d ever seen, and a mop of curly hair.

            The Doctor’s expression grew softer. “I’ll miss you, too.” Her voice was so soft that Yaz barely heard it, but so heartfelt that it tugged at her sympathy.

            “Have you had to say goodbye to all of them?”

            The Doctor turned in surprise, as if she’d forgotten Yaz was there, and then turned back to the photo. “Some of them I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye to.”

            Yaz looked down the wall. Hundreds of goodbyes. Hundreds of heartbreaks. How did she do it?

            “Is that why you tried to warn us, when we decided to come on board with you? Did they all…get hurt?”

            “Not all of them!” the Doctor looked at her, seemingly offended. “I do my best to keep my friends safe, but sometimes things happen.”

            “And this room is how you remember them?”

            She turned her attention back to the wall. “Yes, one of the ways.” Yaz watched as she leaned back, eyes roaming over the group of photos in front of her. Deep in the Doctor’s expression, Yaz saw the sadness of ages.

            “Oh!” the Doctor exclaimed suddenly, as if she had forgotten something. She pulled another photo out of her pocket and dashed down to the end of the wall. She pinned up the new picture, one of her, Yaz, Graham, and Ryan in Hong Kong during the Chinese New Year in 2021.

            Yaz stared at the photo for a moment and got a strange feeling. One day, would another one of the Doctor’s friends find this picture and wonder the same things? Where would Yaz be then?

            “All right, Yaz?”

            Yaz turned her head to see the Doctor’s gaze on her, seeming to be reading her mind. “Fine,” Yaz pushed out, trying to ignore the troubling thoughts.

            The Doctor smiled and looked at the picture. “It’s a good photo, isn’t it?”

            Yaz noted their exaggerated grins, their arms around each other like they didn’t have a care in the world. She had to smile at the memory, and all of her doubts and fears were chased away. She couldn’t have asked for a better life than being on the TARDIS. No matter what happened, the friendships that she’d made and the things she had seen were all worth it.

            “Yeah.” Yaz nodded, excited at the prospect of adding all sorts of new memories to the wall. “It really is.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had to put a Leela nod in there because I'm currently making my way through Classic Who and I was so sad when she left!! :(


End file.
